The founder of Theranos and convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes has requested to stay out of prison during her appeal as she recently welcomed her second child.
She has requested that her 11-year sentence for felony fraud be delayed to allow her to remain at home with her two small children while she appeals the guilty verdict, according to USA Today.
Holmes was sentenced to 135 months in prison in November of last year after she was found to have defrauded investors in connection to her failed Silicon Valley start-up that claimed it was set to turn blood testing on its head.
When she was sentenced, the 39-year-old had a one-year-old son and was awaiting another child.
A recent legal filing states that she now is the mother of “two very young children … her toddler and an infant”.
The request for Holmes to stay out of prison awaiting her appeal was filed on 23 February with the US District Court for the Northern District of California. It didn’t reveal when the second child was born.
The motion arguing that Holmes should be released also claims that she’s not a flight risk and that she’s “highly motivated to continue complying with her conditions of release so that she can work with her lawyers while she pursues her appeal”.
During her sentencing, US District Judge Edward Davila delayed the date when she had to report to her Byron, Texas, prison until 27 April to allow her time to give birth.
The hearing to decide if she’ll be allowed to stay out of prison during her appeal has been scheduled for 17 March.
Federal prosecutors say in court filings that Holmes is a flight risk, pointing to a one-way plane ticket to Mexico that she booked for 26 January 2022, just three weeks after she was convicted of fraud and conspiracy on four counts.
She cancelled the flight after prosecutors got in touch with her lawyers regarding the “unauthorized flight,” prosecutors added.
Holmes claimed in a court filing that she was planning to go to a wedding that her close friends were set to have in Mexico, adding that the trip was cancelled when the prosecutors raised their concerns.
Holmes left Stanford University when she was 19 years old to launch Theranos, a medical diagnostics firm, in 2003. The startup set out to create a blood testing machine that would only need a pinprick worth of blood to conduct a large number of tests.
The company was at one point valued at $9bn with more than 800 staff.
Some of those who invested in the company included Oracle founder Larry Ellison, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Walmart founders the Walton family, former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, as well as his fellow former Secretary of State George Shultz.
Her indictments stated that Holmes and her colleague and ex Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani lied about what the technology was capable of, as well as the state of the company’s finances, and its collaboration with the Defense Department and Walgreens.
Balwani has been convicted on 13 counts of fraud and conspiracy. He has been sentenced to almost 13 years in prison, but like Holmes, he’s also attempting to stay out of prison during his appeal.
Holmes’s guilty counts were connected to victims losing at least $120m while total losses ended up being more than $800m, according to prosecutors.
